


Stay With Me

by scarletsptember



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:58:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletsptember/pseuds/scarletsptember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny knew that he had been taken. He could still feel the lingering effects of the chloroform that had been pressed over his nose and his mouth. Taking a deep breath Danny banged on the wood above him and let out a choked breath when dirt cascaded onto his face and into his mouth. He had been buried alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

Danny knew he had been taken. It probably happened the moment he stepped out of headquarters. He was so angry with Steve that he wasn’t paying attention to what was happening around him. All Danny could focus on was how _stupid_ Steve was being about the entire situation. It didn’t matter how cryptic the letters were, none of them were going to be taken. They weren’t the _real_ threat. The governor was. That’s what Danny remembered fuming about as he paced back and forth in front of the building.

Danny could still feel the lingering effects of the chloroform that had been pressed over his nose and his mouth. His mouth was dry and his eyes burned with fatigue of the drug. He reached up to rub his eyes clear when his hand bumped hard against something. He could feel his heart starting to beat quickly in his chest as he took in his surroundings. It was dark, so dark he could barely see the outline of where his feet were. When he reached up it there were only a few inches from his forehead to solid wood. He pressed outwards from his sides and encountered the same thing. Taking a deep breath Danny banged on the wood above him and let out a choked breath when dirt cascaded onto his face and into his mouth.

_He was buried alive_.

He went over everything that he had heard, had read about what to do if you were ever in a situation like this. Don’t panic. Panicking led to using up your oxygen. It stole the small amount of time you had left to get help. He patted at his pockets in hopes that there might be something there. His phone. They left him his phone. The bright light of the home screen nearly blinded him, but he had one single bar. If he still had a signal he wasn’t buried too deep.

Angling his body so he had a better view of the phone and its keypad, Danny typed out a quick text message to Steve. **I’m buried alive.**

He waited. And he waited. Closing his eyes Danny did his best not to scream like he wanted to. He wanted to scream. He wanted to bang his fist so hard against the wooden lid. He wanted to get out. Instead he focused on his training. How long had he been in here? It was late, 9:36 PM. It was almost five when he stormed out of headquarters. It would take some time to transport him to a place that the people who took him could bury him. They couldn’t chance someone finding them in the process and ruining everything. He had time. He could make it out of this alive.

His phone chirped in his hand, startling him. **_We’re going to find you. Stay calm. What do you remember?_**

Danny thought about it. What did he remember? Chloroform made it hard for anyone to remember the smallest of details, the kind of details that Steve would need in order to find him alive. Instead Danny focused on what he knew right this moment. He banged a fist on the lid again to feel the dirt. If it were hot, cool, wet or dry. He wiped a hand over his closed eyes to feel the dirt. It was moist. That could mean anything though if he was deep enough.

                **Can’t remember anything. Soil is wet.**

Maybe that would give Steve a place  
to start. Then it hit him. His phone! They could track him through his phone.

**Track my cellphone!**

The response this time was immediate as if Steve were waiting for anything Danny could give him.

**_I tried._ **

Danny ignored the urge to scream once again. He was deep enough that they couldn’t track his cell phone but he could still send out messages? That didn’t make any sense to him. If he could send messages and receive them they should be able to track him. Unless the people who took him knew how to disable that part of his phone. With quick movements, Danny plucked the battery from his phone and pressed his thumb over the plastic to see if it had been tampered with. There were juts of plastic and what felt like gouge marks. They wanted him to be able to call for help. They wanted to make him hopeless. They didn’t want to just hurt the team, they wanted to dismantle it and the only way to do that was to kill one of them.

As soon as he put the battery back into place and his phone powered up there was a message waiting for him on the home screen from Steve.

**_You still there?_ **

Danny typed out that he was and that he was trying to think of some way to help them find him. The battery icon at the top of his screen had dwindled down. He needed to stop focusing on the time and sending messages back and forth to Steve. He needed to save that until…he just needed to save it.

The air around in the casket had gotten warmer, humid. He concentrated on his breathing. Slow and steady. Don’t panic. Slow and steady. He was going to get out of here. Steve, Kono, Chin, they would all make sure of that. They wouldn’t let him die in here like this. They wouldn’t let Grace lose him.

Grace. Oh god. He wouldn’t ever get to see her again. Ignoring every rational thought in his mind, he pressed the home button on his phone and scrolled through to get to his photos. He needed to see Grace’s face. He would make it out for her. He wanted to hear her laughing at something stupid he did again. He wanted to hear how snarky she was starting to get even though it pained him to hear it sometimes. He needed to see her get to middle school and high school. He needed to fight and argue over what kind of car she got to drive when she turned sixteen. He had to see her graduate and listen to her debating between which colleges she would go to. He wanted to see what she would become. Would she be a teacher? A doctor? He didn’t care as long as she was happy and he got to see that.

Danny could feel the warm trail of a tear along the side of his face and he wiped at the skin. He needed to get it together. If he were crying that meant his heart was beating faster and he was using more oxygen.

**Tell Grace that I love her. I’ll always love her no matter what. Tell her that.**

Danny let the phone rest on his chest. He ignored the vibration signaling an incoming message. Instead he just remembered. He remembered the moments in his life that made it all worth doing even if at the time it didn’t seem to be significant.

The first time he met Steve. God how annoyed he had been with Steve for the first few months of working together. There would always be something that bothered him about Steve but now he realized those quirks were the things that made him love Steve. He loved the way he laughed at the most inappropriate moments or at stories that weren’t supposed to make someone laugh but Steve always did.

Grace when she visited him for the first time in Hawaii. She was so excited to see him that she burst into tears. She didn’t care that he lived in what barely passed as a pathetic excuse for an apartment. She was just so happy to see him and to be able to see him as often as Rachel would allow it. All he had ever wanted in his life was to see Grace happy. He couldn’t imagine a life without her. What would she do without him?

His phone started to vibrate in staccato rings. He was losing the slight signal he had along with the last dregs of the battery of his phone. He saw that it was Steve calling. He could answer this. He could answer then he could fight.

“Steve.” Danny’s voice was soft.

“Don’t you dare give up on me Danny.” Steve snarled out. “We’re coming. We know where you are.”

Danny clinched his eyes closed. That tone, he knew it. It was the same tone that Steve used when talking to the families of hostages, reassuring them that their family members would survive even when Steve wasn’t sure of the possible outcomes. The team was nowhere near finding him. He was going to die in a John Doe’s coffin in the middle of nowhere.

“Steve,” Danny rubbed at his eyes trying to stave off the impending tears. “You promise me that you’ll tell Grace that I love her. That I will always be watching out for her. Okay? Tell her that.”

“I won’t.” Steve answered with a harsh edge. His words were fading in and out through the phone and Danny knew he didn’t have much longer but Steve was still talking. “…find you. Tell her yourself….don’t you…up…you. Hear me? I…you.”

“Steve, if you can hear me I want you to know that I love you. Always have. I’m sorry I didn’t saying anything until now. But I needed you to know. It was always you. No matter how many girls I went out with it was never right. Only when I was with you it felt right. It felt real. It was and will always you Steve. “

The phone in Danny’s hand chirped one last time before powering off. Danny set the phone down on the wooden planks beside him. He took a deep breath. He could do this. He wasn’t too far down and if he created a big enough break in the wood enough of the dirt would loosen he could climb upwards and through. Unbuttoning his shirt up until the buttons on his collar he maneuvered it so it was over his head, the buttons snug at his throat before tying the sleeves over his head. It would serve as a mask between his face and the dirt. If he suffocated it would be from lack of air, not choking on dirt. Next he felt at the wooden planks above him. He needed a loose board to start with. If he could get his fingers in between the planks he might have a better chance of breaking through.

The angle was awkward but he could feel the dirt slipping through the cracks his fingers made between two of the boards. He smashed his palm, then his fist against the boards. He was running out of air if the way his heart was pounding in his ears was anything to go by. He started to push with his feet and the wooden board cracked. He froze for a moment before the boards were caving in on him and dirt was pouring in on top of him.

It was hard moving his body upwards against so much dirt falling downwards in on him. The muscles in his legs burned and his hands and fingers burned as he dug and clawed his way up. He could taste the dirt as it seeped through the fabric of his shirt and he sucked it in towards the back of his throat. He was choking. He couldn’t breathe. He could feel the cool air against the tips of his fingers and he tried to push against the dirt and the wooden beneath him to get to the surface. He couldn’t. He was stuck. Inches from the surface and he still didn’t make it.

The last thing he saw before he let the dirt win was the sound of Steven and Grace’s laughter at the last team get together. They were so happy. In that moment he was okay. Dying this way was going to be okay. Seeing the way Steve’s smile stretched wide before he tilted his head back in laughter, Grace following suit on his lap.

A hard tug on his hand broke him from his thoughts. He could hear something, someone, but he couldn’t quite make out what he was hearing as they tugged and dirt moved around him. Danny felt like his entire body was on fire. He felt a cool burst of air brush against his scalp before he gave in to the darkness that was calling him.

“Danny!” Steve yanked at the shirt surrounding Danny’s head trying to clear the dirt from Danny’s mouth and nose. He dug his fingers in Danny’s mouth clearing it of dirt before Chin was shoving him out of the way and pressing hard against Danny’s chest. One, two, three, four, five. Breathe. One, two, three, four, five. Breathe. One, two, three, four, five. Breathe.

Danny was coughing, dirt still coming up and out of his throat as he rolled onto his side and away from the hell that was pressing against his chest. He opened his eyes barely conscious of what was going on. Only that Steve was there, his hands warm against Danny’s cheeks as he spoke.

“Can you hear me?” Steve asked over and over again. Danny tried to shake his head no but it hurt to move. It hurt to think.

“Danno, the ambulance is almost here. Stay with me. Danno, stay with me.” Steve chanted over and over again with his eyes locked on Danny’s. “Stay with me Danno, stay with me.”

~

Danny woke up to the sound of machines beeping around him. His throat felt raw and his nose was dry from the influx of oxygen that he was being given. The skin around his knuckles and wrists felt swollen. He let his eyes wander enough to know that he was missing fingernails, the skin on his knuckles had been stitched up and his hands were bruised a deep shade of purple.

“Danno?” Steve’s voice was soft but a relief to hear. He rested his hand on Danny’s shoulder since his hands weren’t an option. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” Danny rasped out and Steve grabbed a cup of water and let Danny sip at it to moisten his throat. The cool water felt like glass going down his throat.

“Slow,” Steve murmured. After a few more sips Danny leaned back against his pillows and watched Steve. He had never seen Steve move so much in such a small space. His fingers tapped out rhythms against Danny’s shoulder, his feet slid against the linoleum in between the beats of his fingers.

After a while Danny couldn’t take the silence between them. “How did you find me?”

Steve rubbed a hand over his mouth and stared at the floor. “You said the dirt was wet. There had only been rain on one island in the past week and it was nearly a tropical storm. That’s where we started. Everyone was looking for you. If you wouldn’t have…”

Steve’s voice cracked and Danny realized how close he had been to losing his life, losing Grace, Steve, the team.

“If you wouldn’t have tried to get out the dirt wouldn’t have caved. We wouldn’t have ever found you.” Steve buried his face in his hands. His shoulders began to shake and Danny knew that Steve was crying. He wasn’t the only person who had been close to losing someone important. “If I would have lost you, damn it Danny. I can’t do that. I need you.”

Danny shifted on his bed, letting his feet hit the floor and he reached out placing his palm against Steve’s cheek. “I’m still here.”

Steve placed his palm over Danny’s, holding in place. “Did you mean it?”

Danny pressed his lips against Steve’s forehead, “Every damn word. You know what kept me pushing?”

“Danny,” Steve whispered not sure if he really wanted to hear the words.

“The last barbeque when you and Grace were laughing at me because I tripped over Kono’s flip-flop. I kept thinking of how happy you two were and that’s all that really mattered to me. Seeing you and Grace smiling the way you were. It was the last thing I saw.”

Steve moved slowly as he stood. He placed a hand at Danny’s jaw, “I meant it too. Every word.”

Danny looked down at the ground before facing Steve, eye to eye. “I never heard you actually say it. I hoped. I wanted that. But the phone cut out.”

Steve let out a huff before ducking in to press his lips against Danny’s. First it was soft, their noses brushing with shy touches before Steve took complete control. He angled Danny’s head back and parted his lips against Danny’s. Their breath mingling hot and fast as Steve tasted the man he thought he had lost.

“I love you Danno.” Steve whispered as he rested his forehead against Danny’s. “So much.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt taken from Livejournal over at the community commentfic - The original prompt kind of got away from me and grew. Just a bit.
> 
> Prompt: Hawaii Five-0, Danny ( + / any), buried alive.
> 
> Oh and you can find me on Tumblr if you so wish. http://scarletdreamsofseptember.tumblr.com/


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